Comeback
by Sacral
Summary: Sasuke comes back. Nothing spectacular happens. At first. SasuKaka and an evil Orochimaru who wants Sasuke back.
1. Comeback

**Comeback**

Characters: Kakashi and Sasuke

Summary: Sasuke comes back. Nothing spectacular happens.

* * *

Kakashi had started to live in the old Hatake mansion of his father. The garden had been and still was a mess while Kakashi only had to dust off his bedroom and some other rooms to settle in.

Now it was winter and Kakashi had been living in the big house for about two months. Snow covered the high trees in the backyard and turned the whole area in a beautiful, glittering white world. The temparature had dropped beyond freezing point weeks ago but Kakashi still ran around in the typical Jounin uniform.

One morning, seemingly as normal as any other morning, he puttered around in the kitchen to ready breakfast. Barefooted and without his hitae to cover the sharingan, he padded over to the sliding door leading into the garden and opened it. Cooly he stared up at the teenager sitting on a tree branch, playing soundlessly with a pair of stones between his fingers.

Kakashi didn't say anything along the lines of, "Nice to see you.", neither did he take out a kunai from his weapon's pouch and threw it at his former pupil while he stared into pitch black eyes. He just turned around, set another set of dishes down on his table and filled the hot tea into two cups.

The rest of the morning he spent eating breakfast with Sasuke. The entire time he wasn't sure if he should whack the black-haired teen over his head for running after Orochimaru four years ago or draw him in a tight hug.

Tsunade wouldn't be pleased.

* * *

Maybe will be continued with some SasuKaka action in it. 


	2. Life

**Life**

Characters: Still mainly Kakashi and Sasuke

Summary: How the lives of Kakashi and Sasuke continue once the Uchiha came back. No SasuKaka action in here.

* * *

Sasuke was still in prison, facing a trial with all council members and the Hokage herself present to decide what to do with him. Or that was what Kakashi had thought.

He had stumbled home after another un-ranked mission to find the Uchiha sitting at his kitchen table, peacefully sipping tea out of the very same cup he had given him barely one month ago. They had stared at each other for a moment, Kakashi's back hurting and his right wrist broken while Sasuke didn't seem to have changed at all in the last month.

Kakashi had after three long minutes finally decided that he was too exhausted to kick the teenager out of his home right now and had gone to clean his wounds and change into dry clothes. When he had come back a cup filled with steaming tea and a moody Uchiha had waited for him.

-

Kakashi's reaction had been like that: "You are _not serious_!"

Tsunade had shrugged her shoulders, tapped a pen in an impatient way against her office desk and stared up at him with hard, blue eyes.

"I am totally serious," she had said. "You seem to be the only one who knows him at least a little bit and you have the Sharingan to not be fooled by his. You have enough space and he has come to you before. Watch him, find out if he really wants to become a Leaf shinobi or if he is just a spy. Report to me at least once a week. You are dismissed."

And with that Kakashi had been settled with his former student Sasuke. He hadn't been too happy about it while Sasuke hadn't shown any reaction concerning his new living arrangements, neither negative nor positive.

-

When Kakashi had still lived with his father, he had always slept on a futon. After he had moved out of the big, still house and into the tiny apartment, he had slept for the first time on a bed. It had been uncomfortable in the start but he had gotten used to it as he got used to everything in his life pretty fast.

In fact, he even liked the bed more than a futon now.

So he had brought his bed with him when he had moved back into the Hatake manison.

Sasuke had been of a different opinion and just silently rolled out a futon in the room he had claimed his own.

One day Kakashi was quite surprised to find himself waking up on a futon with Sasuke staring down at him, slightly longer bangs shadowing his black eyes.

"You passed out in the middle of the corridor," Sasuke explained before Kakashi could ask. "Blood stains are easier to wash out of a futon. You have a strained ankle, the bone of your left upperarm is broken and you got a concusion,"

That was the first time Kakashi experienced Sasuke caring enough to haul him into his room and treat his wounds before they could get worse.

-

Kakshi observed Sasuke silently from across the table. The youth was running his eyes over the newspaper, a cup of coffee standing by his side.

While Itachi had a slender frame, inherited from their mother, Sasuke seemed to have gotten the slightly stronger frame of their father, still wiry but with his power actually showing in the form of muscle cords rippling under his dark shirt. He propably was even some inches taller than his brother now.

Kakashi's arm prickled uncomfortably and reminded him that tomorrow he had to go back to active duty and that Tsunade sure had some S-class missions for him already on her desk.

-

He had passed out two times already this month. Both times he had woken up in Sasuke's room, once even with a light fever. It was making Kakashi angry and afraid alike. Angry because his body suddenly seemed to lack its usual stamina and afraid what that meant.

If he was to black out like that on a high-class missions he would sure as hell return from it in a body bag. In addition he gave Sasuke free reign over everything when he was weakened like that. So far the teenager hadn't taken advantage of it but he could be very unpredictable, as he had shown before. Kakashi thought about telling Tsunade. And after he had passed out a third time he finally went and talked to her.

-

Kakashi ran his eyes over yet another test written by an Academy student and nearly yawned. Tsunade had assaigned him to do some paperwork from the Academy instead of running around and killing everbody in sight. It was a pleasant change and it gave Kakashi even more time to observe the Uchiha who was currently sitting on the wooden veranda facing the backyard.

Scribbling something at the end of the paper in red ink, Kakashi shoved the last test aside and sighed in relief. Cushioning his head on his crossed arms lying on the table-top, Kakashi peered at Sasuke who in turn was watching him.

"Dinner?" Kakashi asked. Sasuke nodded and the silver-haired Jounin got up to make something to eat.

-

He was slammed through one of the flimsier walls made of rice paper before a sturdier wall stopped him. His back cracked in protest and Kakashi actually groaned in pain. Then the enemy ninja was on him again, hurtling shuriken and kunai. They logged themselves into a block of wood while Kakashi slit the throat of their owner.

Moving away before the blood could splatter on him, Kakashi rammed his ANBU sword into the back of one of the shinobi concentrating on Sasuke. The man made a wet sounding noise in the back of throat and then slumped lifelessly forward- and at the same moment the poison scroll wrapped all around his body went off.

Kakashi's eyes widened for a moment before he pressed them shut and moved back and away from the colourless poison cloud as fast as he could. He actually could feel his exposed skin blister and his eyes stung for a moment so badly he wanted to claw them out, then it was over and Sasuke blasted the last of his opponents through the wall.

The youth straightened, made sure their enemies were dead and then started to clean his katana on the clothes of one of the fallen. Kakashi watched him for a moment, felt an unpleasant throb in his Sharingan and then suddenly the red-tinted vision was…out. Kakashi felt like he had gone blind on his left eye again.

"Everything alright?" Sasuke asked, a frown marring his brow as he looked up from his weapon to see Kakashi reach up and move his headband back over his Sharingan.

"No problems," Kakashi laid and let his eye crinkle in his customary eye-smile, even when it hurt the blistered skin of his face.

-

One day later Tsunade had to use some healing-jutsus to at least get the Sharingan going again. She advised Kakashi to not use it at least for one week and then sent him home.

"You laid to me," Sasuke said darkly. He sat at the low table in the living room, arms crossed in front of his chest and eyes hard as he traced Kakashi's form.

Kakashi moved into the kitchen and started to make some tea.

"I only told you that there is no problem. At least for you," he finally replied calmly, putting the kettle down from the stove and filling the hot water into a cup.

"It is my problem when I have to drag you from the doorstep into the house and bandage up your injuries everytime you overtax yourself," Sasuke hissed and anger slipped into these eyes which had been carefully blank until then.

"That won't happen again." Kakashi wouldn't let it happen again.

"Are you sure? When was the last time you slept a night through?" _When was the last time you actually let yourself sleep the whole night, not afraid of anyone trying to murder you in your sleep? _

Kakashi didn't answer neither the voiced nor the unspoken question and turned away from Sasuke to pull his facemask down and sip his tea.

The attack one night ago had proven that not even Konoha was completely save anymore. The Hatake manison laid on the very outskirts of the village but it was still alarming to have enemy shinobis here, in the middle of what should be a safe haven.

Eyeing the borded up holes in the wall, Kakashi tried to figure out how much it was going to take to repair the damage and if he would have still enough money after it, then shrugged it off and put the half full cup down.

* * *

Hope you liked it and review. Maybe if you encourage me enough, there will be the next part soon. 

Bye, Sacral


	3. Going on

**Going on**

Characters: Kakashi, Sasuke, a mostly pissed of Tsunade and some others

Summary: See what problems a single Uchiha can cause one poor Kakashi Hatake. Nothing really yaoi-ish yet

* * *

Three months had gone by since Sasuke had been dumped on him and Kakashi started to suspect he was getting used to the teen.

He would wake up before Sasuke and make some tea for himself and coffee for the teenager. Then he would sit down at the kitchen table, enjoy the hot liquid running down his throat and wait for Sasuke to roll out of his bed and stumble into the kitchen with his hair still messed up from sleep.

Sasuke wasn't a morning person. He would grunt a greeting Kakashi still wasn't able to decode, stare with blarry eyes at the happily chirping birds, damn them to hell and back and then start to sip his coffee. When he felt especial awake he would even read the newspaper.

Kakashi never read the newspaper. So, he silently wondered, how did it come that suddenly an exemplar laid on his doorstep every morning?

Moving on from newspapers and shuriken thrown at unsuspecting birds, Kakashi next would start to go over various essays or even mission reports if there were too many for the regular staff to handle. He would wield the red pen merciless and be done by the time to start lunch.

Sasuke wasn't a good cook, not by a wide stretch. So Kakashi always had to be the one preparing meals or order some from the catering-services. They would eat in silence with Sasuke reading the newspaper while devouring his food at the same time. Most times Sasuke would do the washing-up and Kakashi could sit down on a patch of floor which had been warmed by the sun and read one of his orange books.

Dinner wasn't important enough to cook something, they just wandered in the kitchen to grab a sandwich or two and then dissappeared in their respective rooms again.

Before going to bed Kakashi would walk through the whole house, checking windows and doors and only settle to sleep if he had heard Sasuke lay down, too.

Kakashi was pretty sure Sasuke would snap of boredom soon.

-

"I am quite content Sasuke will do something drastic soon if he doesn't get out of the house in the near future," Kakashi stated, hands in pockets and bored expression fixed on his face.

"And what shall I do?" Tsunade asked exhausted, the paperwork nearly reaching over her head when she was seated. "We don't have enough ANBU to allow him out. And I won't trust him around Konoha with only you there."

"Then, I fear, he will try to break down my house pretty soon."

Tsunade only sent him a dirty look.

-

Sasuke didn't try to break anything, for that matter, he just would spend more and more time in the garden, never crossing the high fence that surrounded the whole manison but staring longingly after the birds.

-

Kakashi hadn't gotten the other shinobi in the chest as he had intented. But it was ok, because with the other's throat ripped out he wasn't a danger anymore, right?

Kakashi moved on, his hand straining to push through another man's chest and squishing his heart. A shuriken wizzed past his hear and took some silver hairs with it but didn't do any serious damage.

Before the owner of the shuriken could hurtle the rest of his weapons, Kakashi was on him and slashed his throat open. The blood sprayed partially on Kakashi's face and vest but he was too busy to take any notice of it.

And just when he was about to get his vest even bloodier by slashing a Mist-nin in half, Sasuke appeared in the corner of his vision and, with an expression as uncaring as stone, slaughtered three kunoichis at once.

Kakashi was too tired to be impressed.

-

"So you just walked out of my house, hidden by a simple genjutsu, and before the ANBU could react you were gone from Konoha. You kind of stumbled over me fighting here and decided you needed some exercise. Invading an A-rank mission you nearly destroyed important information," Kakashi said calmly while he tended to an ugly slash in his tight.

Sasuke only sniffed in response and continued to clean his katana, which was ever-present these days. Three scrolls laid beside him, soaked with blood but the messages hopefully would still be readable or Tsunade would have both their heads.

Once he was done and Sasuke had sheathed his sword, Kakashi stood up and sighed deeply while he collected the scrolls.

"Let's head back and hope Tsunade won't be too upset."

-

"I can't believe it!" Tsunade snarled. Kakashi was reminded of the fox-demon when it had tried to invade their village. It had had about the same expression of furry on his face back then.

"Kakashi, which precautions did you take to ensure Uchiha would stay in your house?"

"None. Any traps I would have laid out wouldn't have stopped him," Kakashi replied and was tempted to whipe Tsunade's spit from his eye but didn't dare to move.

"Is that so?" Blue eyes brighter in anger than normally turned from Kakashi to Sasuke and back. "Then I have to suspend you from active duty, Kakashi, to watch out for Uchiha all the time." Tsunade barred her teeth in a frightening grin at the two males standing in front of her desk. "You are dismissed."

-

The only sign that Kakashi was upset was the angry look in his black eye when he stared in his books and thought Sasuke wasn't watching.

"We could break out," the Uchiha suggested one day when they were sipping tea in the kitchen.

Kakashi sent him a look which seemed to ask 'Are you CRAZY?'.

Sasuke only shrugged and gulped down all his tea at once.

-

"What the hell?" Kakashi whispered as furiously as he could, being sandwiched between the floor and Sasuke. It was the middle of the night, Kakashi was more irritated than ever because of Tsunade having suspended him and now shadows were sneeking around in his house and Sasuke just had to play big, bad protector, shoving him in a small cupboard Kakashi hadn't even known of.

"These are sound-nin," Sasuke responded quietly, shifting a little bit off Kakashi's back to not squish the silver-haired Jounin under his weight.

"And? Let's get out there and kick their asses," Kakashi hissed back, hand wandering already to his weapons-porch.

"These aren't the regular shinobi, these are the elite. Six of them. If we aren't careful they will kill us on the spot."

"Oh? And what do you suggest?"

"Being silent, for an example," Sasuke growled. Kakashi snorted. A shadow walked past their hiding place and they immediately froze.

"Hold still," Kakashi finally said after he had made sure no enemy shinobi was near enough to attack them if they noticed them. He settled a hand on Sasuke's shoulder and formed with the other a complicated seal. The three wheels in his Sharingan spun and the next moment they were outisde the house, only one feet away from the fence.

"Go!" Kakashi said and leapt onto the wall without waiting for Sasuke. He raced through the streets, joined by Sasuke only moments later. There were footsteps nearly as silent as their own behind them and Kakashi caught words said in a strange language, then three cloaked figures where suddenly in front of them while the other three neared behind them.

Kakashi didn't stop or slow down like Sasuke did but barreled directly into the first shinobi.

The steel of a kunai flashed in the light of the stars before it was deeply buried in flesh. The sound-nin made a strangled sound, then was cut off abruptly as Kakashi stabbed him again, right in the throat this time.

The customary katana flashed in Sasuke's hands (Kakashi wondered how the Uchiha had gotten it, he hadn't noticed it before) and he countered an attack from the broadest sound-nin flawlessly. Then his sword shot forward too fast for the normal eye to catch and burried itself deep in the chest of the sound-nin.

Kakashi didn't have much time to marvel at Sasuke's skills with a katana. One sound-nin had nearly gotten a kunai in his spine but he had moved enough to get it just logged in the back. His Jounin vest was absent so it went deeper than he had expected. Kakashi's thoughts were along the lines of _Fuck, they are really better than the scum Orochimaru sent at us last time. _

-

Sasuke was more than miffed. He hadn't had more than three hours of sleep, his Juin was burning because he had his Sharingan activated and the kunai in Kakashi's back seemed to be poisoned. In addition there were three elite Sound-nin out there, searching for them and surely keeping and eye on the streets leading to the Hokage tower and the ANBU head-quarters.

Kakashi sat behind him in the narrow, dark ally and ripped off a pant leg to bandage up his back wound.

If Sasuke was right about the poison, Kakashi would first feel a rise in temperature, then there would be pain spreading away from all the important nerve knots and finally unconciousness followed by death. Sasuke had to get him to Tsunade quickly. It was after all his fault that the Sound-nins had come here. But he wouldn't mention that in front of any Leaf-nin. Anything but that.

-

Kakashi knew the signs of poison. He could mix some poisons himself but he rarely used them. Most poisons took long to activate and Kakashi was more the fighter who ended his battles quickly. Strike out, catch your enemy with a deadly blow and be done. Naruto's former sensei, Iruka, had told him once that that was one of his biggest weaknesses: Not being able to hold his own in a longer fight.

So Kakashi didn't use poisons very often. He still knew the most common signs, like a sudden fever or nausea. At the moment he felt like he had both. The cold stonewall in his back seemed to dim the fever but his inner organs seemed to have suddenly decided to be rebellious and try to get his latest meal back out. Add to that some elite sound-nins and a former student whose goals he still wasn't certain about and he felt like being back in the war, only this time there wasn't a blond sensei around to rescue him out of every shit he got himself into.

Sasuke glanced at him over one tense shoulder, katan hidden so its gleam wouldn't attract enemies. Kakashi heaved himself up from the ground and moved to his side, peering out into the dimly lit street.

"Any ideas where they could be?" he whispered, scanning the area carefully and trying to ignore his body's reactions to the poison.

"One or two are probably watching the streets and roofs leading somewhere where we could alarm others while the rest sytsematically hunts us down," Sasuke replied, readjusting his grip on his sword.

Kakashi only nodded and after a last glance into the street jumped up into the shadows cast on the walls by the roofs. He started running into the direction of the Hokage tower.

"Where are you going?" Sasuke hissed sharply from where he suddenly ran along beside him.

"To the watering system. Some canals lead near enough to the tower that they probably won't be able to stop us before we get there," Kakashi said and dropped to the street.

A narrow ally later they stood in knee-high water with the canal only being high enough to allow them to crawl on all fours. Kakashi was in the front and he could hear Sasuke mutter curse-words now and then when water sloshed up high enough to hit him in the face or wet his sword.

When they were as near to the tower as they could get, they moved out of the canal again. Sasuke wanted to take a moment to wring out the excess water from his clothes but Kakashi didn't let them. Which was a wise decision, then only seconds after they had started to move in the direction of the Hokage tower again, there was a sharp whistling sound and the three sound-nins appeared behind them, now not trying to be more silent than they absolutely needed to.

The Hokage tower was a tall shadow right in front of them when they caught up.

Kakashi held a kunai in one hand while his other hand was poised ready to activate the Chidori and rip out some hearts. Sasuke only seemed to have his sword but Kakashi caught sight of some shuriken when the youth shifted into a defensive position.

Then the pain came and the sound-nins attacked.

Later Kakashi only remebered that he had suddenly lost control of his limps and crashed to his knees.

Sasuke had killed a shinobi with one strike and immediately gone after the second one who seemed to use only long-distance jutsus.

The third had attacked Kakashi. Which had been a mistake, then even with pain wracking his frame Kakashi had been able to activate his chidori and plung his hand into the other's chest. The other's suddenly dead weight came crashing down at him and nailed him to the street.

Kakashi would consider himself lucky later, when the fire-storm activated by the last member of the sound-trio washed over him and left him with only minor burns, the corpse shielding him and being turned into crisp instead.

"Let's get you to the Hokage," Sasuke said after he had kicked the sound-nin's burned remains off Kakashi.

-

"You want to tell me that you defeated six elite sound-nins who suddenly plunged into your home and that you have no idea why they came here," Tsunade said, eyes as cold and hard as ice as she sat behind her desk with her chin resting on one hand. Kakashi, stitched and bandaged up, only nodded. He occupied the only other chair beside Tsunade's in the room with Sasuke standing moodily by his side.

"Well then. We will keep you here since it seems the Hatake manison will be too far on the outskirts to garantue your safety.

"Uchiha, there are two ANBU waiting outside to escort you to your new room. Kakashi, we will keep you for some days in the hospital to make sure you have fully recovered. Leave."

They left with only Kakashi bowing and Sasuke not even looking back.

* * *

Hope you like this chapter. And please write me if there is anything I could do better. I always like comments, even if they just tell me I have too many grammatical errors 

See ya,

Sacral


	4. Break out

**Break out**

Characters: mainly Kakashi(29 years old; he was about 11 years old when Sasuke&Co were born; with 25 years he became their Jounin instructor) and Sasuke(18 years old; he was 14 when he left and he came back after 4 years- at least as far as I think; correct me if I'm wrong) Sakura and Naruto are about 18 years old

Summary: Sasuke breaks out, Kakashi tags along and Tsunade is _really _pissed off now.

--------

"I plan to leave again," Sasuke calmly stated like they were talking about the weather. Kakashi only levely stared at him, leaning back in the uncomfortable hospitalchair.

"And?" he asked after a moment of silence.

"And I will go kill Orochimaru. He and his lapdogs are getting annoying."

"And?" Kakashi patiently asked again. Sasuke growled at him.

"And what?" he bit back, black eyes stormy as he folded his arms over his chest.

"Why do you tell me? Don't you suspect I will run off to Tsunade any given time and tell her about your plan?"

"You can either come with me or I will knock you out long enough to escape. Believe me when I say you won't find me again if I decide not to be found. Your decision?" Sasuke patiently stared at Kakashi, waiting for his answer.

Kakashi considered the whole mess. He was pretty sure Sasuke wouldn't be able to beat Orochimaru, not if he hadn't trained under the snake-master himself for the past four years and hadn't gotten a better hold on his Sharingans.

"You probably will get killed one way or another and me being there will just be another shinobi less in Konoha and two more names on their death-list. I am pretty sure Naruto and Sakura –who will be back from their missions soon- will be furious that you have gone and gotten yourself and myself killed. So…if you are really sure that you can defeat Orochimaru I will accompany you, under the condition that we come back to Konoha after you killed the snake-master."

"Ok," Sasuke said easily and produced two fully packed field bags from nowhere. "Let's go."

Kakashi stared. "You had all this planned out already?"

"Yep." And Kakahsi again had forgotten that Sasuke was some kind of genius, too.

-

Another thing Kakashi had forgotten about Sasuke was the fact that he was still 18 years old, still tried to kill his brother and still hadn't mastered the Mangenkyou, seeing as Naruto was still bouncing around happily. And he was still very unorganized, leaving nearly everything to Kakashi.

"I left a letter to explain our leave," Kakashi said evenly as they settled down after a day of running, just outside the borders of firecountry.

Sasuke shrugged, worrying himself more with making a decent fire.

"I also copied some informations about Orochimaru from the Hokage office. He seemed to have moved around a lot lately." Kakashi dug out some papersheets from his backbag and folded out a map on his knees. "He servered his connections to Snow Country and left Kabuto in charge of his base in Sound. Since then he has traveled around, building up a new group of mutants to replace Sound's Four."

Sasuke poked the fire with a dry stick, eyes flickering over to Kakashi quickly and then away again.

"Know anything about it?" Kakashi asked casually as he marked something down on the map. The black-haired teen squirmed a little, then let the stick fall into the fire and slumped down on the ground beside Kakashi.

"Orochimaru already has a new Sound's Four. I was one. When I fled he was readying battle-strategies to destroy Konoha. I already told the Hokage during one of my interrogations."

"The part with being one of the Sound's Four or the one with the battle-strategies?"

Sasuke shot Kakashi a sour look. "I _was_ one of the Sound's Four. And I only told them about Orochimaru's attempt to get rid of Konoha."

Kakashi 'hm'ed in confirmation and marked more things down.

"Aren't gonna you question me any further?" Sasuke asked, obviously surprised.

That was the longest discussion they had ever had, Kakashi thought as he lifted his head to stare at the Uchiha.

"I am sure you are old enough to tell me everything else which is of any importance," he finally said and went back to reading his papers.

Disbelieve clearly written on his face Sasuke watched Kakashi for a short moment, then got up and settled down on the other side of the fire. He took out some raw meat from his bag and roasted it over the fire.

"During the most interrogations they just wanted to know how much I learned from Orochimaru and what he was planning. They didn't concern themselves at all if my loyality still laid with Orochimaru," Sasuke started. Kakashi waited patiently for him to continue.

"In the last interrogation the Hokage herself was present. She didn't believe me anything concerning the Sound-nins who had attacked us. Seeing as she wouldn't believe me even if I told her the truth, I decided to leave."

"And why exactly did you decide on me to accompany you?" Kakashi asked curiously.

Sasuke shrugged. "So somebody is there to bring me back if I am too badly injured to not be able to make it myself. And maybe you can help me and keep Orochimaru's underlings at bay while I kill him."

"To eleminate him we have to find him first," Kakashi reminded him. He thought he saw red shimmering in Sasuke's eyes as the teen stared at him from over the fire, then a slow smirk spread over the Uchiha's lips and he said, "That won't be a problem. He is already searching for me and will find me sooner or later. We just have to wait."

-

_Is it worth it?_ Kakashi thought as he watched the night-sky. At the edge of his vision he could see Sasuke, rolled into his sleepingbag and eyes closed, hand tucked under his pillow and griping a kunai even in his sleep.

_Is it worth to become a traitor for a traitor?_

Ruffling his anyhow ruffled haired some more with his hand, he traced the scar over his left eye, Sharingan exposed at this late time of night.

_Still a dept to pay…?_

-

The girl at the reception smiled shyly at them as she handed them their keys. Kakashi took them from her with a wide smile on his full red lips; Sasuke was standing beside him, a bit shorter than Kakashi now.

"Never knew Naruto's Sexy no Jutsu would come in that handy one day," Kakashi said as he admired his female form while they passed a window on the way to their rooms. He had differed his hair to a black-red mass, curling down to the mid of his back, and full breasts drew every male's attention to his form. Sasuke was more the rough-handsome form of women, short, blueish hair and green eyes combined with a muscled frame but still enough curves to identify him as a woman.

"You seem to enjoy yourself awfully much as a woman," Sasuke commented quietly.

"Well, yes! Why not?" Kakashi grinned brightly at his companion.

-

Chakra burned and weapons were flung seemingly careless. One of Kakashi's shadow-clones was hit and degenerated into smoke and some dry leaves. There was the sound of thousand of birds and the attacker died.

_That won't be enough,_ a voice whispered in the back of Kakashi's skull as he straightened from his last victim and whipped the sweat from his eyes. Both his normal eye and the Sharingan were trained on the two figures high up in the trees, burning away their chakra to defeat the other. A sound behind him, nothing but a too loud breath, and Kakashi whirled around and threw himself into another battle, knowing that _it wouldn't be enough!_

-

In the end, he at least thought it had been enough.

Kakashi stared unblinkingly up into the sky. He wasn't sure anymore if his right arm had been cut off or was still connected to the rest of his body. Corpses were strewn all over the field and Kakashi was buried half-way beneath some.

The crunching sound of breaking bones echoed across the battlefield as somebody carelessly walked over the dead bodies.

His eye felt awfully dry when Kakashi blinked it after a long time. What was with his Sharingan, he didn't know. The shinobi with the big battleaxe had nearly severed the left side of his face off. Thanks to a graceful move all damage Kakahsi had sustained was a long, red line over his Sharingan. He wasn't sure if the implant still worked. He couldn't open it anymore with the blood gluing it shut.

"You are really getting old," a familiar voice informed him. Kakashi's eye narrowed. The grey orb moved to focus on the man standing beside him. It was Sasuke's face, body and voice, but could he trust it?

"Sasuke…" he breathed slowly. "…or Orochimaru?" There was the flash of white teeth as Sasuke's lips were stretched into a cold grin.

"Decide for yourself," he said. His gaze was sweeping over Kakashi, taking stock of his injuries, then it moved over the battlefield, considering the many corpses. "He put up a good fight," he continued, still staring off over the battlefield. "For being a Sannin." Black orbs focus on Kakashi again. "You really need medical treatment."

Kakashi didn't resist when Sasuke moved him out from under the dead bodies and slung his left arm over his shoulder after he had bound his right arm together as best as he could. But when Sasuke was about to set off while supporting most of Kakashi's weight, his left arm tightened around his neck, making Sasuke acutely aware of the fact that Kakashi could snap his neck easily form his position.

"How did I look when we stopped to rest at this inn one week ago?" Kakashi rasped, staring intently at Sasuke. The Uchiha heir's eyebrows rose.

"Long, red curly hair, full breasts and lips, slender frame," he finally listed.

"How did we escape from my house when Orochimaru's Elite-nin tried to catch us?" Kakashi prodded further.

"You used a one-handed technique; tiger, horse, ox."

Kakashi wasn't satisfied yet, "How did I survive the fire-storm of the last of the Elite-nins?"

"You were buried under the dead body of the shinobi you killed just moments before."

Kakashi's arm tightened further around Sasuke's neck, then it loosened and Kakashi's closed his eye. "Get us home," he said and Sasuke obligated.

-

"Whenever you two are together he is left as a mess and you just look fine!" Tsunade ragged as she pointed at Kakashi's unmoving form which was stretched out on the pristine white bed. Sasuke sat on a chair beside the door, arms crossed over his chest and glowering darkly at the current Hokage. He still felt sore from when a horde of ANBU had "tested" if he really was Sasuke Uchiha and not Orochimaru.

"And not just that!" she hissed, blue eyes narrowing until they were mere slits with uncontrolled, violent emotions sparkling in them. "You seriously want to tell me you killed Orochimaru and now are back here, willing to accept any punishment I will put upon you!"

Sasuke just nodded.

"Well then," Tsunade said, trying to slip on her cool poker face which had saved many well-paid missions after she had lost her temper in front of a customer. She succeed. At a wave of her hand four ANBU members appeared silently in the room, two crouched over Sasuke on the ceiling, one on the windowsill and the last one moving in front of the Hokage. Everybody in the room knew that if Sasuke had really killed Orochimaru four ANBUs weren't by far enough to restrain him. Either Tsunade didn't care or was confident that Sasuke wouldn't try anything stupid in the heart of the Hidden Village.

"Sasuke Uchiha, for the next twelve months you will be staying in a cell in the cellar of the Hokage tower. If you resist or try to break out, the guards are advised to hurt or kill you."

-

"You know, somehow it was stupid of you to come back here," Kakashi rasped as he leaned against the cool metal bars of Sasuke's cell. The sickenly yellow glow of the chakra barrier Jiraiya had put up inside Sasuke's cell was the only light down here.

Sasuke only grunted his reply, leaning back on the narrow bench. The heavy cuffs around his wrists clinked against it each other. "How's your arm?"

When Kakashi didn't answer, Sasuke's eyes slid open and focused on the grey-haired ninja. Kakashi stared sightlessly ahead, right arm still in a sling, even when it had been over three months now since their battle against Orochimaru and his lapdogs.

"Fine. It's fine," Kakashi said as he straightened suddenly, eye curving into a happy arc.

One moment Sasuke had been in the corner opposite from the metal bars Kakashi was halfway leaning against, in the next second both of his hands were wrapped around the bars, chakra barrier ripping at his form to force him back again.

"Don't give me that shit," he growled through gritted teeth, the strain of the barrier on his body increasing. "Will you ever be able to properly move it again?"

Kakashi stared at him, body involuntarily having moved away from the bars when Sasuke had crashed against them. Then his eye closed and he breathed a single word, "No." and Sasuke snarled something intelligible right before he was hurtled back from the metal bars. He was smashed into the wall and Kakashi could sense the ANBU members arriving.

"Please leave now, Hatake-san," the ANBU with the owl-mask asked him politely and Kakashi just nodded.

-

Sakura was silent as she worked on fastening the bandage on his shoulder. She hadn't visited Sasuke, neither had Naruto. Partially because they hadn't been allowed to -everybody knew that if they really wanted, they could see him any time- , partially because it hurt too much to look their long-lost team mate in the eyes, knowing that they could do nothing. Kakashi was the only visitor Sasuke got.

"There, everything finished," Sakura murmured.

"Thank you," Kakashi said politely, presenting her with another of his eye-smiles and tugged his shirt on one handed. After their check-ups he couldn't move his right arm for at least two hours. Normally he couldn't really move it either -too many dead nerves, too much pain- but after they had looked it up, it was blissfully numb. Probably the only point why Kakashi still bothered with showing up at the hospital once every week.

"You should take better care," Sakura said gruffly, straightening his mused collar. She flicked a delicate hand at his chaotic hair. "And maybe you should get a haircut soon."

He only smiled at her again for worrying about him and waved a hand at her when he left the room. A fine shinobi, that was what she had become, Kakashi mused. They all had become fine shinobis he realized as he stopped outside the big doors of the hospital. But somehow they still reminded pretty childish, Kakashi thought as he watched Naruto at the Ramen stand, challenging Lee into Ramen eating and somehow dragging Choji and Kiba into it, too.

Well, he chuckled silently to himself as he turned into the opposite direction, they would grow out of that.

"My Eternal Rival, I challenge you to Ramen!" Gai boomed from where he sat beside his student.

-or not. Kakashi groaned.

-

"Obito," Kakashi said calmly. He stood alone in front of the memorial stone, morning birds chirping their lonely tunes while the sun slowly painted the sky light blue. "You gave me an eye." Reaching up with his left hand, Kakashi removed his headband. "I gave you an arm." His right arm, today not in a sling, throbbed in time with his heartbeat and Kakashi felt strangely at peace.

Time went by and Kakashi was still standing in front of the memorial stone. There was no intimidate duty for him -no noisy genin to train, no paperwork to look up, no S-rank mission to lose his life at, no Sasuke to keep watch about… And with a start Kakashi realised he hadn't given his arm for Obito. He hadn't thrown his arm out to catch one attack aimed for Sasuke's unguarded back to even the odds between himself and Obito. He had done it for Sasuke. And what kind of frightened him was the thought that for Naruto, Sakura or anybody else he probably wouldn't have done it.

-

There was a polite knock from the front door and Kakashi looked up from his one handed press-ups, surprised.

"I am coming!" he called when a second knock sounded. Quickly undoing the bandage which held his right arm on his back because he couldn't manage that simple task on his own any longer, Kakashi strode to the door.

"Ye-" Kakashi's single eye literally bulged out of its socket. "Sasuke?"

"Hello, I was told to look after one Kakashi Hatake because he seems to have some problems with his right arm." Sasuke smirked at him, hands stuffed lazily in the pocket of his dark trousers. There were no restraints on him anywhere and Kakashi could only feel two Anbu members hovering nearby.

"Uhu," Kakashi mumbled.

They stared at each other, Kakashi trying to find an explanation for Sasuke standing in front of him right now and not rotting in some cold cell and Sasuke looking all cool and hip.

"So," Sasuke finally said. "Can I come in?"

"Oh, yes, sure!" Kakashi quickly stepped aside and let the Uchiha inside. He closed the door and followed Sasuke in the kitchen. While the black-haired teen made some tea, Kakashi stood in the kitchen door, unsure what to say.

"Drink it before it gets cold, it's green tea," Sasuke told him while he set two cups down on the table. Kakashi shuffled forward and perched himself on a chair. Sasuke was so polite to stare into his own tea while Kakashi pulled down his mask to take a quick sip.

"It's good," Kakashi stated.

"I know," Sasuke said. "I made it, after all."

For a moment Kakashi just looked at Sasuke, then caught sight of the small smile twitching his lips upwards, and had to grin.

"Care to tell me how you got free?" he asked and slouched much more casually in his chair. "Or do you want to look through the newspapers first?"

Sasuke dove for the newspapers Kakashi had gathered in the last weeks. And while he watched Sasuke go systematically through them, Kakashi thought he had found the answer to the question why he had bothered with keeping all the newspapers.

-

The wards were all over Sasuke's body, on his back and chest, along his arms and around his knees and ankles. There was even one lowly circling Sasuke's neck.

Kakashi catalogued each of them carefully while Sasuke wrung out his wet shirt. The Uchiha seemed to have forgotten that his chakra had been bound by the wards and had jumped right onto the pond while trying to catch the shuriken Kakashi had thrown. Now his clothes were dripping and his hair was flatted against his head. He looked grumpy for having forgotten such an important fact.

"You still up for some throwing games?" Kakashi asked lightly from where he was seated on the veranda, nearly his whole assortment of kunais and shuriken stuck in the wood around him. For the last quarter of an hour he had thrown at least three pieces at one time and Sasuke had to catch them and throw them back to him in a certain angle so that they logged themselves into the wood near Kakashi.

Kakashi could practically feel the ANBU members perched near his house bristle because he had brought himself in such a dangerous situation. Sasuke could easily miss-throw a kunai or shuriken and then he could lose his eye or worse. But Kakashi trusted Sasuke enough not to do something like that to him. He was after all his favourite teacher, right?

-

"These are boring, corny and what do they call it? _Not allowed for underage people_?"

"You don't have to read them," Kakashi put in mildly while he mixed the tea, fully concentrating on not sloshing some of the substance over the rim of the cup. Sasuke sat in the living room and watched his movements in the kitchen through the open door. He was waving around one of Kakashi's infamous orange books.

Setting one cup down in front of Sasuke, Kakashi took his place opposite the Uchiha at the low table. "On the contrary I could say that you are pretty much obsessed with reading newspapers."

"That's something else!" Sasuke protested. "It is a good thing to keep oneself updated about the happenings in the villages!"

Kakashi raised a disbelieving eyebrow at the teen. "You really believe the important information will be put down in newspapers?"

"No, but I didn't mean such things. There are written other things, who marries who, who died, what's new on the market, which weapon rose in price and things like that." Sasuke took a big gulp of his tea. Kakashi just shrugged but had still a disbelieving air about him. He lifted his cup to his face and was about to slip his facemask down with the same hand that held the cup to take a quick sip but he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Just the fluttering of eyelashes, the shifting of the dark orbs behind it. Sasuke wasn't politely looking away like Kakashi was used of him but instead was watching him, obviously trying to catch a glimpse of his face. Instead of drinking the tea, Kakashi lifted the cup a bit higher and sniffed at it.

"I think I forgot some sugar and mint," he said cheerfully and got up to wander in the kitchen and add it. With his back to Sasuke he made a show of tasting it before returning to the living room. For the rest of the afternoon he didn't touch the cup again. Sasuke didn't show any outward reaction but Kakashi could practically smell the disappointment oozing off him.

-

"What are we doing here again?" Sasuke asked in a bored voice. He was sitting on one of the big boulders at the side of the swallow river, chin in hands and hair still mused from sleep.

"Further up the river a class of six year old Academy students is having a field day. We are to stay here and watch out if one of the kids drifts off and catch it before it can get any farther." Kakashi was toeing off his sandals and letting his Jounin vest fall to the ground together with the bag he normally carried at the back of his belt. His right arm was tightly bandaged and the sling Sakura had ordered him to use stuffed in one of his pockets. "To say it without so many words: We are having a day off!" With these words Kakashi discarded his dark shirt and gloves and jumped right into the river.

When he surfaced again, facemask and headband clinging to his face and the bandage around his right arm a bit browner than before, Sasuke was looking down at him darkly. His pant legs and sandals were soaked through, thanks to Kakashi's jump. Then an evil smile stole its way on his face.

"How about a fight?" he asked calmly, stepping down from the bolder and shedding his shirt.

"That would be pretty unfair with no chakra for you, don't you think?" Kakashi mulled, bracing an elbow against the stony underground and letting the water wash over his lower back and legs.

"Oh, with you having only one functioning arm…" Sasuke trailed off, smirking down at Kakashi. "Or are you afraid I will beat you, old man?"

Kakashi snorted and pushed off the ground to let himself drift to the middle of the river. "In your dreams, brat."

-

To be fair Kakashi only used chakra when he was about to lose balance due to his right arm and he had to say he and Sasuke were evenly matched. But if Sasuke would have been able to use both his Sharingans and all the forbidden techniques he had learned from Orochimaru…well, let's just say Kakashi was happy the chakra seals were where they were.

Pushing off the slick underground Kakashi jumped back and delivered a roundhouse kick to Sasuke's stomach. _Too low, too far to the left,_ his mind informed him when Sasuke curved his body around his foot with ease and tried to punch him square into the face. _But he's surprising slow, too. _

Flipping back, Kakashi tried not to slip on one of the slick stones. For a moment he struggled, tried to put out his right arm to steady himself and instead hit the water with a loud splash. Sasuke was a black blur moving in his direction and instinctively Kakashi rolled to his side and shielded his stomach and chest with his legs while he lashed out with his arms.

Stones dug into his bare back as Kakashi stared up at Sasuke in surprise. His right hand was hooked in one of the teen's trouser pockets, the other hand about to deliver a solid punch to parts of Sasuke's lower anatomy he better didn't punch if he didn't want to feel the Uchiha's holy wrath. One of Sasuke's hands was up to defend aforementioned body parts, the other had a death grip on the rim of Kakashi's mask. He could kill Kakashi in four different ways from this position.

"I win," the Uchiha breathed, eyes lightning up.

Kakashi blinked. Then growled in outrage and for a short second reminded Sasuke of a big, unhappy dog. "Why you? I am the winner!"

"Forget it, _I_ am the one who has you in the worse situation," Sasuke said arrogantly.

"And this-" Kakashi waved his left arm about to punch Sasuke in certain vulnerable places around. "-isn't bad or what?"

"It wouldn't kill me," Sasuke replied.

Kakashi narrowed his eye. "Are you sure?"

Now it was time for Sasuke to narrow his eyes. "Don't you dare." Kakashi didn't listen. Sasuke stopped his punch just before it could reach its destination.

"That means war," he growled.

What followed could only be described as water wrestling. Limps whirled through the air, about half of the river was inhaled and then coughed back out and finally Kakashi was able to put a safe distance between them. They stared at each other, wiping water and blood from their chins.

"I still say I win," Sasuke panted, dark hair plastered to his cheeks and ears. Kakashi thought he saw red shimmering in the depths of Sasuke's eyes.

"And I say: In your dreams!" Kakashi replied firmly. He saw how Sasuke gritted his teeth in frustration in the subtle shift of his jaw and was prepared for the next series of punches Sasuke threw at him.

The slender needles pierced the water where Kakashi's neck had just been moments before. Shifting his focus in the blink of an eye from Sasuke to the shinobi hidden in the high trees to the side of the river, Kakashi snatched the needles and threw them back. They didn't hit flesh but the bark of the tree as the enemy had already moved on. Face hidden by a dark cloth with two holes for the eyes, the shinobi appeared on top of Kakashi. The long spear in his hand was aimed for Kakashi's heart but before it could meet its aim, Kakashi had already used his chidori with his left hand and jerked the spear away with his right arm. Blood coloured the water around him red, most of it from the enemy but some from Kakashi too. As Kakashi broke through the surface of the river he saw Sasuke struggling with a female shinobi to his right and two other shinobis moving in his direction from the left. Without hesitation Kakashi reached up and lifted the headband from his Sharingan.

-

"Really, the way they keep bugging us we could be S-ranked criminals with a sky-high bounty on our heads," Kakashi mused. Sasuke just shot him a cool look which told him that Sasuke probably _had _a bounty on his head with enough zeros on it ends to drive anyone crazy.

Four sodden wet forms lay between them, securely bound by strips of clothes Kakashi and Sasuke had torn from their shirts. The shinobi didn't have any signs on them which indicated from which country they were and Kakashi didn't remember any of their faces from the Bingo book.

"You can move your right arm," Sasuke pointed out while he tightened the bandage around his wrist where the kunochi had cut him open.

"Yep," Kakashi said happily. "I will go to the hospital so that they can see what caused it."

-

The silence between Sakura and Sasuke was awkward. Kakashi sat on the examination table, shirtless, while Sakura looked at his right arm and Sasuke leaned against the wall beside the door. Sakura tried her best to avoid Sasuke's eyes but when they meet, her green eyes shyly flickered away and she blushed a little.

"She grew into a remarkable woman," Sasuke said once the examination was over and the two of them were on their way home. "But please tell me she hasn't any crush on me anymore."

Kakashi glanced at him, swinging his right arm back and forth without any pain since months, and just eye-grinned at the Uchiha in answer. Sasuke groaned quietly. "At least the rest broke out of their fangirlism," he murmured quietly. Kakashi continued to smile, remembering the many pink and light blue envelops he had thrown out before Sasuke had seen them, and very nearly started chuckling but held it back. Maybe Sasuke should get the mail just once, and count all the letters addressed to him.

--------

I hope this chapter hasn't too many errors. I _really_ tried to improve! And I beg for comments, as always!

Bye,

Sacral


	5. Progress

**Progress**

Characters: Still the same- Kakashi and Sasuke.

Summary: Slowly, very slowly, Kakashi's and Sasuke's relationship progresses into something else.

* * *

Kakashi had to be dreaming. A nightmare, he was sure. There was Sasuke standing in a blotched and singed apron in his kitchen, trying to end the toaster's life with any means necessary. Some half-burnt eggs were lying on a plate on the table, a glass of traditional tea and fresh orange juice beside it. Kakashi rubbed his eyes and, after the image of Sasuke maiming his kitchen hadn't disappeared, went back to his bed.

"Just some more minutes," he promised himself while he pulled the blanket over his head.

-

When Kakashi woke for the second time this day, Sasuke was gloomily standing in the doorway of his bedroom. He was clothed completely in black and his eyes promised death and destruction to everyone who mentioned the many band aids on his fingers.

"I tried to make breakfast," Sasuke gritted out. Kakashi groaned quietly and got up. The kitchen was tidied up but nearly half the eggs were missing and a huge bit of bred was found in the basket, burned to coal.

"How about we've some of these donuts from the café down the street?" Kakashi suggested and scratched the back of his head sleepily. Sasuke moved like the shadow of some tormented soul while he put on his shoes and waited for Kakashi to get properly clothed.

"But there's one positive point about the whole thing," Kakashi said cheerfully, or as cheerful as he could get this early in the morning, while they made their way down the street. "You won't try to do that again, right?" He thought he heard Sasuke murmur something along the lines of, "I'll find something else." and tried to decide if now was the right time to break out in cold sweet.

-

When Kakashi woke up one week later, Sasuke was standing at the foot of his bed, clothed in black again but this time there seemed an upward quirk to his lips. Kakashi was a bit alarmed that his internal radar would let Sasuke wander this close without ringing any alarm bells. But after Sasuke had dragged him out of bed and to the door of the living room opening into the garden, he just stared.

"What the hell?" Kakashi asked, brain still slow from sleep.

The garden was tidied up. The small pool to Kakashi's right was clean and he caught a glimpse of golden fish darting through the clear water. Green grass covered the whole ground, carefully cut and intercepted now and then with colourful flowers and white stones. Most of the trees had lost the dead leaves from under their branches and were looking freshly cut and watered. The high wall around the Hatake mansion had obviously been scrubbed but even Sasuke couldn't erase the older patches of dirt.

Kakashi was still asking himself how Sasuke had managed that in one night when the Uchiha handed him a cup of freshly mixed tea.

-

The surprises continued, like freshly painted walls in- and outdoors, cleaned-up kitchens and new tatami mats for the living room. Kakashi stopped asking 'How?' after the first three weeks and started to ask 'Why?'. Sasuke always mumbled something about repayment and then shuffled off to make some more tea. He still tried to get a peek of Kakashi's face which Kakashi of course didn't let happen. There was his reputation to hold up, after all.

-

Green, Kakashi decided, wasn't Sasuke's colour. He was more the dark blue or black type, even an angry red if it came to it, but green definitely didn't suit the Uchiha. Kakashi thought about telling Sasuke that he didn't look as good in his green yukata as he might think but decided against it.

Tapping the back of his feet against the wall he was sitting on, he watched the festival carry on, fanning himself with the colourful fan he had won earlier. He himself wore a black yukata with a black belt and a white facemask. Sasuke had commented that none of his dark blue masks really went with the yukata and had given him the white mask together with the white eye patch Kakashi was wearing over his Sharingan right now.

Kakashi silently wondered why Sasuke had chosen the green yukata for himself if he was such an expert with colours.

And thinking of the devil, Sasuke appeared out of the crowd, a load of toys under one arm and a grilled fish on a stick in the other hand. He didn't look too agitated which was a pleasant surprise, seeing as Kakashi had to practically drag him to the festival by his legs. Maybe Sasuke had chosen the green yukata to look as unflattering as possible and attract as little girls as he could manage, Kakashi wondered.

"I ran into thirteen girls who wanted to invite me for tea, twenty who wanted to go dancing with me and twelve gave me toys," Sasuke recounted flatly and dumped the load of toys in a nearby dumpster. "What are you doing here?" he asked with mild interest while he gnawed on his fish.

"Lost one of my sandals," Kakashi answered cheerfully. Sasuke glanced at Kakashi's bare left foot, lifted an eyebrow at him and continued to nibble on his fish.

"Gai saw me and nearly had a heart attack because, I quote, "He would have sooner expected his great-grandmother to crawl out from under her rock to attend this festival than me.", then challenged me to who could win more prices," Kakashi finally explained after five minutes of being silently stared at by Sasuke. "I think I will let him win." He slumped a bit lower and continued to fan himself. Sasuke plopped down on the wall beside him and scanned the crowd for any familiar or unfamiliar females which had zeroed in on him.

"I could get you another sandal or do you want to jump home on one leg?" Sasuke offered after he had thrown the stick the fish had been on in the aforementioned wastebasket. It landed in it with an accuracy which was normal for a shinobi of Sasukes' level but had some passing by genins gaping at him.

"Another sandal would be nice but I think I'll manage home with only one tonight," Kakashi brushed him off, bracing himself with one arm back on the narrow wall and staring up at the starlit sky. Only some pale grey clouds were dusted here and there but Kakashi had heard that a heavy rain was about to cross the mountains in the east and start autumn season a bit early. Sasuke got up from his place by his side and he glanced at the youth who vanished with a curt, "Stay here!" in the crowd. Only minutes later Sasuke was back again, caring two sticks of dried fish and a single, white sandal.

"That should fit," the Uchiha informed him as he gave Kakashi one of the dried fish sticks and bent down to slid the sandal on Kakashi's left foot. Kakashi wiggled his foot experimentally and decided that it wasn't too bad. "Thanks."

-

There had some things in common, Kakashi decided. Both had been cut off from their families at an early age, even if Sasuke had Itachi to channel his grief and hate at. They both had the Sharingan and they both had mastered the Chidori. Before certain loudmouthed team mates had opened their eyes to what was truly important, they had both been cold-blooded bastards. Said loudmouthed team mates had each practically died at their hands, even if Naruto had survived thanks to Kyuubi and Sasuke's death intent had been very present and very focused. Kakashi hadn't wanted Obito to die.

His nose twitched and so Kakashi swung his feet over the edge of the roof as he sat up and peered down.

And Sasuke was really, really horrible in the kitchen, he added to his mental list. Grey steam rose out of the open kitchen window and Kakashi could hear Sasuke silently cursing. Another trip to the restaurant down the street was in order, it seemed.

-

After days with temperatures fit for autumn, this day had reached degrees reserved for summer. Kakashi and Sasuke had both shed any dark clothes and put on white muscle shirts and shorts they had been about to burry in their closets.

"It's far too hot to move," Kakashi said but continued to fan himself nonetheless. He watched with an eye only cracked open a thin slit as Sasuke sidled into his room, black hair clinging to his neck. The mattress dipped a bit when Sasuke plopped down on the edge of it.

Kakashi's eye closed.

His headband was missing and instead a cool cloth had been thrown over his sharingan, as white as the facemask Kakashi had put on today.

"Think tomorrow will be as hot?" Sasuke asked and leaned down to take the fan from Kakashi's unresisting hand.

"Mhm, who knows?" Kakashi replied, relaxing further into the mattress. He was about to doze off when Sasuke put his hands on the mattress on either side of his head, dark stare trying to burn holes into his mask.

"What's behind it? Why are you hiding your face?" Sasuke breathed, his dark bangs brushing Kakashi's face who didn't even open his eyes.

"Reputation?" he suggested sleepily. "To be honest, it's more for amusement than anything else. Another thing to let the people wonder about."

"No scars? No hideous deformations you have to hide since your childhood?" Sasuke wondered aloud, a sensitive amount of suspicion laden into his tone.

"Would you call a knocked out teeth a deformation?" Kakashi mumbled and rolled onto his side and away from Sasuke, making the Uchiha remove his left hand from the mattress since he didn't want it to get squished under Kakashi's weight. There was a light tug on his mask.

"Then let me see," Sasuke demanded, bending over Kakashi to be able to see his eyes. Kakashi didn't give him an answer but also didn't stop him from baring one inch of the lower half of his face after another.

The skin under the mask was a shade lighter than the rest of Kakashi's face, a testament to Kakashi even wearing his masks on the hottest of days. As he had said, one tooth, to the left of the front upper teeth, had been knocked out, something Sasuke could see when Kakashi parted his mouth slightly to sigh deeply. But otherwise there was only the faint scar of the sharingan eye trailing down over Kakashi's left cheek. The white cloth pooled around Kakashi's neck and Sasuke leaned down to look more intensely at the space where a tooth was missing. He yelped in surprise when one twist of the silver-haired shinobi sprawled him beside Kakashi on the bed. Kakashi's eye had slipped back open.

"Now I'm allowed to know one of _your _secrets," Kakashi said and for the first time in ever Sasuke didn't just see the shadows of his grin pulling at cloth but saw the original. He wondered who had seen it before him.

"Ok, ask," Sasuke said, sounding annoyed.

-

"Kakashi, I have great respect for you, but I'm afraid you and Sasuke are becoming too close," Tsunade said over a desk only looking as half-full as was normal.

Kakashi just stared her with his bored gaze, hands in his pockets.

The Hokage went on, "So it was decided that Sasuke will get assigned his own apartment, with enough security measures, of course."

Kakashi nodded. After having waited for any other reaction for some seconds, a twitch of his eye, anything, Tsunade dismissed him.

-

When Kakashi had returned home after that very brief meeting with Tsunade, Sasuke had already been catered off to his three-room apartment in a modest part of town. He had left a shopping list on the kitchen table and Kakashi stared at it for a long time.

"So, life goes on…" Kakashi muttered to himself, tugging off his jounin-vest. It joined his sandals at the front door on the floor. Tomorrow he had an assignment with some nurse to look at his arm again and assign some new medicine if needed.

Instead of changing out of his clothes and taking a shower befitting for the end of a day full of running and sweating, Kakashi fell into bed, threw his headband and facemask on the floor and buried his face in the pillow. Tomorrow he should go and ask for a mission after that check-up at the hospital, he decided. This time they wouldn't dare to turn him down with excuses that he wasn't fit for missions yet. And he wouldn't let himself be turned down like the previous attempts this month. After all, there was nobody at home any longer he could look forward to.

-

It was raining. Like somebody had decided that now was a good idea to introduce Leaf country to monsoons. Kakashi tapped his kunai against his upper thigh, thoughtful, and watched raindrops gather at the pointed tip of leaves and then fall. He and the other three shinobi were all in position but they had to wait another twelve minutes before they could attack according to time table.

-

The mission had gone well, only one shuriken to Kakashi's shoulder and another in the side of a female hunter-nin in training. They had reported back and then gone on their separated ways.

His sharingan was aching again and Kakashi tried to lessen the pain by staring straight in the spray of the shower. The wound in his shoulder wasn't too deep so he had decided that he could let it bleed some before bandaging it up. Water, coloured brown and red, swirled down his legs.

Just as he was rolling his forehead against the cool tiles of the shower to ward off a headache, Sasuke slid into the narrow shower stall behind him and slipped a hand between his head and the wall to stop Kakashi rubbing his skin raw.

"Shouldn't you be in your apartment?" Kakashi asked, rapidly blinking at Sasuke who just smoothed back his silver hair and then stared in fascination as it sprung right back.

"Yes," Sasuke shrugged nonchalantly. "But you know: No risk, no fun. That ANBU is a fool anyway. He probably won't even notice that it's my shadow clone sleeping there under his watchful eye.

"And you are loosing too much blood." He turned the knobs until the cold water stopped raining down at them and then they only stood there, staring at each other. Kakashi noticed that they were about the same high but it was hard to say with both their respectively spiky hair. And maybe Sasuke was right about the blood-loss, he felt a bit disorientated and woozy.

A hand touched his upper arm, his left one, where his ANBU tattoo swirled over lean muscles.

"You are cold," Sasuke informed him, ducking out of the shower stall to get towels.

"You want to stay here for the night?" Kakashi asked while they rubbed themselves dry. He hadn't changed anything in Sasuke's room, had just folded the futon and put it back in its cupboard.

When a towel landed on his head by way of an answer, Kakashi looked up, one hand pressing against pressure points in his shoulder which would slow down the blood flow a big deal.

Sasuke grasped the ends of the towel hanging down around Kakashi's face and leaned in close. "If you don't mind," he said with one of the seldom smiles he showed these days. Then he quickly rubbed Kakashi's hair dry, set about bandaging up his arm and even took a comb to the jungle of Kakashi's hair.

Kakashi could still hear him pottering around the kitchen after he had crawled into bed, a grey sleeping yukata snaked around his form. He fell asleep to the sound of a cupboard closing and water starting to run. For the first time since being ordered to live alone, he slept well.

-


End file.
